Discovering the Many Diverse Types of Cryptocurrency Proponents

If you’re invested in bitcoin, you will find out really fast that a lot is going on within the cryptocurrency economy. Moreover, there are all types of bitcoin investors, and each and every one of them is taking part in this economy for various reasons. Here are a few examples of the different categories of bitcoiners and altcoiners you may come across in this environment.

Six Different Kinds of Cryptocurrency Enthusiasts

Cryptocurrencies are a unique type of digital asset that has caused significant global interest. There are all kinds of people invested in bitcoin from nearly every corner of the world with different interests at heart. Some of them are holding onto bitcoin for their dear lives hoping for the cryptocurrency to be worth millions or become a global currency. Then there are others who are spending their bitcoin, paying salaries with the currency, and using it for their daily operations. Alongside this, there are also traders who are flipping the cryptocurrency daily looking for fast profits.

The Hodler

The ‘Hodler’ (means holder) is a bitcoin enthusiast who is invested in bitcoin for the long haul. No matter what happens these types of bitcoiners say they will never sell for a very long time and they are accumulating satoshis as much as they can. If the price drops a few hundred bucks or more, Hodlers could care less as their top priority is to hold their coins for years until something extraordinary occurs.

There are many that believe people who hoard bitcoin are good for the economy and these individuals make the digital asset seemingly more scarce for the time being. Back in 2014, the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute’s Daniel Krawisz detailed why he believes hoarding bitcoin is a good thing.

“Belief in Bitcoin improves the Bitcoin network, as long as people back-up that belief by the the action of acquiring and holding more,” explains Krawisz. “The more greedy people are for Bitcoin, the better are its chances. You should never want people to spend more — you should want everyone to be as greedy as possible.”

Bull and Bear Traders

In the bitcoin economy, there are a lot of traders, and not all of them are hoarding or aim to accumulate bitcoin, in fact, some of them are just collecting more fiat. Some traders in the bitcoin environment are day trading and playing intra-range strategies to gather more fiat or BTC at the end of the day.

There are lots of traders who are very ‘bullish’ about the currency and believe they can gain more profits as bitcoin market’s capture more value. Then there are also traders who are shorting bitcoin on a daily basis. These ‘bearish’ traders are betting against the currency gaining value and hoping at times it will fall so they can profit from the dips in price. Traders are watching the price and charts every waking hour of the day playing their odds on exchanges.

The Spender

There are many bitcoin enthusiasts who believe bitcoins should be spread around and spent. These types of bitcoiners are the opposite of the Hodlers as they think spending the digital asset with merchants, businesses, and giving the currency away to newcomers helps the economy. Not only are people buying the cryptocurrency for various reasons there are also companies paying their employees with bitcoin and their bills as well. Lots of startups have people in remote locations all around the world and they are distributing quite a lot of bitcoin to those willing to work for it.

Newbs

These days there are a lot of newcomers coming into the cryptocurrency environment, and quite a few of them have no idea what they are doing. It’s good to remember that at one point in time you were new as well trying to figure out and understand bitcoin. New bitcoiners ask all types of questions, and sometimes they may seem annoying but the more people involved with this economy, the better. New bitcoiners have questions about sending bitcoin, storing it in a safe place, trading advice, and a wide variety of examinations before they jump head first into getting involved with the technology. Assisting newcomers who are figuring out how to use bitcoin and how to store it in the safest possible way will help spread adoption faster.

Maximalists

The term ‘Bitcoin Maximalist’ was first coined by Ethereum developer Vitalik Buterin. A maximalist believes bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that matters. Altcoins such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash and the hundreds of other digital assets are considered worthless to these individuals. Maximalists believe most altcoins have no real use cases and are speculatively traded on exchanges in order to acquire more bitcoin. Most of these people will refer to alternative cryptocurrencies as ‘Shitcoins,’ and a lot of them won’t allow altcoin discussions in certain bitcoin-centric chat rooms and forums. Many maximalists have no issues telling people they only prefer bitcoin and altcoins have no use cases in their opinion.

Altcoiners

There are many types of altcoin collectors and some of them like bitcoin while others believe bitcoin is doomed. These days there are many people who think that altcoins are the wave of the future and someday bitcoin might be replaced. Others think that bitcoin will remain the biggest cryptocurrency acting as a settlement layer while an assortment of altcoins will be compatible with bitcoin serving as second layers. Other types of altcoin enthusiasts believe that alternative cryptocurrencies will one day outperform bitcoin much like Facebook eclipsed Myspace. Those who believe this feel that it is only natural for this to happen but also try and point out weaknesses with bitcoin in order to bolster an altcoin.

Everyone Has a Different Idea of How the Future of Cryptocurrencies Will Look

The generalizations above only cover a few types of cryptocurrency personalities and ideologies. There are many more varieties of people who are into bitcoin and the altcoin ecosystem for different reasons. A vast portion of these crypto-enthusiasts believe the technology itself will disrupt and ultimately replace the incumbents controlling the global monetary infrastructure. However, there are others who believe cryptocurrencies will be compatible with the existing banking system and think that financial institutions today are needed to make bitcoin legitimate.

The point is, everyone has a different idea of how the future of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, in general, will be over the next few decades. The technology is still very young, and no one knows how things will turn out, but most of us are optimistic this technology will be a game-changer.

What type of cryptocurrency enthusiast are you? Are there any other types that are missing from this list? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Jamie Redman is a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source code, and decentralized applications. Redman has written hundreds of articles about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

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